By Alexandra Alter

May 12, 2019 — 12.15am

There are two intertwined mysteries at the heart of Furious Hours, Casey Cep's meticulously researched narrative about an Alabama preacher accused of multiple murders, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who tried and failed to tell his story.

The first section follows the Rev. Willie Maxwell, who allegedly killed five family members for insurance money in the 1970s. Maxwell himself was killed in 1977, shot at a funeral ceremony for one of his alleged victims by one of her grieving relatives.

There is a mystery about what happened to the work that Harper Lee did on a murder case that fascinated her. Credit:AP

But the other mystery proved even knottier. It involved reconstructing years of investigative work done by Harper Lee, who worked on a true crime book about the case that she titled The Reverend. To this day it remains unclear how much she wrote, why she stopped writing or whether she finished the book.

Cep first learned about the existence of The Reverend in 2015 when the literary world was stunned by the news that Lee was publishing another novel, Go Set a Watchman. When Cep went to Alabama to report on the new book, she learned about another old Lee project that hardly anyone was talking about — a rumoured masterpiece of true crime.

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Cep may not have fully solved the cases, but she collected enough clues and vivid details to tell a captivating story.

Which was the harder mystery to unravel, the story behind the alleged murders, or what happened to Lee's unfinished manuscript?

I'm not sure I solved either of them. But I hope I've given people all the evidence that I can for readers to draw their own conclusions about everything.

What was the most challenging thing about taking Lee on as a subject?

There's a tremendous amount of her inner life that remains enigmatic, even to those who knew her best. She just was exceedingly private.

Casey Cep was intrigued by the story of Harper Lee's forgotten true crime books.Credit:

Why do you think she abandoned it, or never tried to publish it?

It is the big mystery of what became of Harper Lee, and this is one iteration of it. I think for a lot of readers it's unsatisfying because I don't put my thumb on the scale. I think a different writer would have made a guess.

But if you had to make a guess …

She was an extraordinary writer and thinker, and there's a way in which she had everything going for her with this book. Look, I did it, so of course she could have, and probably did, and there's probably no one more excited to read whatever exists of The Reverend than me. I think there's potential for her to have written the whole thing.

And by your account, she gathered an incredible amount of material.

It was clear she had a mind for the investigation. She had all the pieces. She should be able to write it, and then we have to sit with the question of what happened.

Were you at all intimidated taking on a literary project that Lee had failed to complete?

I think Mockingbird is one of the most extraordinary novels in the English language, and the idea that the woman who wrote that couldn't do it doesn't bode well for the likes of Casey Cep. I felt like there was one thing I could do which she was never going to do, which was talk about her. It's the story behind the story. She would never have included herself.

There's an amazing moment near the end of the book when you get this trove of documents that Maxwell's lawyer had given to Lee. What were some other breakthrough moments in your reporting?

I had been told the court reporter from the murder trials was dead. I realised I didn't know that for sure, and I was looking for women by that name, and it turned out she was alive and well. I go knock on the door, we get to talking about the Maxwell case and she goes, "Gosh, I haven't talked about this since I talked to Harper Lee."

One gets the sense that you have a real affection for Harper Lee and yet you expose her demons, her heavy drinking, her insecurities, her disdain for her hometown. Was it difficult to draw out sources on those aspects of her life?

People were happy to finally get to talk about it, trusting that it would be represented in a responsible way and not a sensational way. A lot of people felt like they didn't want to embarrass her in her lifetime, but they wanted to let the world know that she struggled.

What do you think Harper Lee would have made of your effort to finish the story she never told?

I don't think she would have approved of someone looking so seriously at her life. And yet I think that she valued the truth a great deal and would have admired the extent to which this is a book that tried to tell the truth.